Chapter 21 #4
From the little Elizabeth had told him, Jane had flung herself into relationships, hoping to find the perfect fit, while she’d shied away from them, distrustful of those who might show affection.
God, he’d been so fortunate; whatever mistakes they’d both made early on, however big an ass he’d been to her, he had never betrayed her trust.
Darcy leaned against the bar and gazed upon the beautiful woman he loved.
She was laughing and smiling, cajoling Mr. Philips, intently conversing with sportswriters and book reviewers, and greeting the book’s subjects and introducing them to one another.
Darcy saw members of the crowd watching her as he once had: fascinated, curious, unknowing but intrigued.
They can look all they want, but she is mine.
When the evening ended and they climbed into the car, he held her close and expressed, as always, his awe at her talents and her beauty. Then he got to more immediate concerns. “Tell me you’re wearing nothing under that little black dress.”
Elizabeth, a tad tipsy with joy over the evening, nodded solemnly. “I’m wearing nothing under this little black dress. Except something pink and lacy and possibly edible.”
Their driver saw and heard nothing. He’d swear to it.
The following evening, they spent their third-ever night at her apartment.
Darcy had pushed the point, wishing to spend more time immersed in her world, surrounded by her things, especially now that Jane had moved out.
Always a light sleeper, he woke up when he heard a crash, followed by a hushed “Dammit!” in the kitchen.
Pulling himself from the warm bed, he wandered into the kitchen and found Elizabeth wiping up loose tea from the countertop. “Love, is something wrong?”
She didn’t want to tell him that she was still angry with her father and his excuses for not attending the book party.
She hated complaining about her parents’ neglect.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was the last man in the world who needed to hear such whining.
She didn’t want to talk about what Jane had told her about Sylvia.
She’d only had him for a few weeks, and too many things were changing.
No pre-game superstition or ratty gray cardigan was going to stave off bad things.
But she had to tell him. She owed Darcy the same honesty she demanded of him. Elizabeth finished making a pot of tea then curled up on her oversized red sofa and told him about Sylvia’s impending visit and her dread of it all.
“She wasn’t so bad.”
“Right. You met her at the engagement party. You saw her! I don’t want her near you or near me.
I don’t want you to see her and think, ‘Oh, Elizabeth has that same expression or nervous gesture’ or something.
I do not want to be anything like her. I don’t want her in my life.
I don’t want her to mess up Jane’s wedding.
” A tear rolled down her cheek, and she angrily wiped it away.
“Darling, it’s—”
Eyes welling up, Elizabeth shook her head.
“She doesn’t deserve us. She made a choice and left us.
She thought she was a wonderful person for waiting until after my birthday party.
Well, I get a choice too, and it’s too late.
I don’t want her for my mother. I want a mother like you had—” She froze. “Oh God, I’m sorry; that isn’t fair.”
Darcy leaned forward and pulled her onto his lap. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I lost a wonderful mother. And you lost a woman who didn’t grasp what it meant to have children and feel that unconditional love. You’re right. She doesn’t deserve you.”
She looked sad and unsure and, he realized, frightened.
He kissed her forehead. “Elizabeth, I watched you at the book party. You charmed and educated everyone. Your book is fantastic. I’m so proud of you.
You took a one-shot marketing tool your boss thought up and turned it into a book with big names and mass-market appeal.
It was your ideas and your writing that did that. ”
She smiled a little and slipped her arms around his waist.
“And, despite their flaws and imperfections, you love people unconditionally. Jane, your family, Charlotte…and me. My God, you know every awful thing about me, and you absorb it, and you turn it around and manage to love me more. That is your gift, and it’s amazing.”
He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “You get to choose who you trust with your heart. I’m beyond fortunate to have earned your trust. But your…Sylvia can’t demand it. She has to earn it, and then you make the choice.”
Elizabeth, her face buried in his T-shirt, nodded.
“And from what I see, you are nothing like either of your parents. Sometimes that’s a choice, sometimes it’s just the strength of your individuality. And you are an original. Thank God.”
She blew out a shaky sigh. “I don’t know about that. I seem to have judged you from the lofty perch my father sat me upon.”
“But unlike him, you stepped down and joined the rest of us mere mortals.” He cupped her chin and turned her face to his. “You saw me as I am. And you gave me a second chance.”
Elizabeth shifted in his arms, sitting up until their faces were level.
He gazed at her openly, inviting her trust. This vulnerability, frightening and intense, was new to him as well.
As different as his childhood had been, he had little more experience with a happy family. Death and dysfunction surrounded them.
Elizabeth took his hand and held her smaller one up to it. He laughed softly at the sight. “You do have man-size paws. They’re Darcy hands.”
“Somehow, I don’t think you’d like me touching you with lady hands.” He curled his fingers around hers.
“Probably not. But you have quite a bit of your mother in you: your love of Pemberley and baseball, animals, art, and music. Besides your hands, do you have any bits of your father in you? As he was…before?”
“You wish to know if I’m like him? That’s what my aunt said?”
She nodded. “You have his business sense, right? And his seriousness?”
He half-laughed. “I suppose that’s true. The board seems to appreciate my corporate bloodlines.”
“Will…”
“She and my father never got along, you know. Aunt Catherine liked him, but not Aunt Patricia. It’s weird, really. Part of me wondered if she fancied him or resented my mother for abandoning America for ‘that man.’”
He looked at her and swallowed. “I loved my father, but as I grew older, I knew I didn’t want to be like him.
I don’t know what he was like as a young man, but he was always serious around me.
I don’t remember him laughing much. Georgie, um, she made him smile.
She was a little girl, so of course she did. Maybe I did too when I was small.”
“Of course you did, honey. I’ve seen the pictures.” Elizabeth wrapped her arms around his neck. “You all looked very happy. He was handsome. Not as handsome as you, of course, with these Fitzwilliam eyes and cheekbones.”
Darcy tried to smile, but he was thinking about how his father had pushed him away, finding it too painful to look at his dead wife’s features on their son’s face.
He wished he could empathize with him, but he’d never understand how a man could lose his wife and daughter and decide he no longer wanted his son.
He couldn’t fathom how Sylvia Bennet could watch her daughter blow out the candles on her eighth birthday cake and then pack up and leave the next day.
He closed his stinging eyes and pressed his lips to Elizabeth’s hair.
“Neither of us will make the mistakes our parents did.” Elizabeth yawned as her words hung in the air. She felt herself drifting off.
“What do you mean?” Darcy asked in a careful voice.
“We’ve learned from the past,” she murmured, yawning again and snuggling more deeply into him. “And you’ll be a great dad someday.”
Elizabeth was so tired she didn’t feel his heart start racing.